Sri Lankan journalist’s disappearance remains unexplained

July 23, 2010 3:32 PM ET

New York,
July 23, 2010—Six months after the unexplained disappearance of Sri Lankan
journalist and cartoonist Prageeth
Eknelygoda, the government has refused to offer any assistance or provide
answers to his wife, Sandhya. The government’s attitude is a clear indicator of
the anti-media polices of President Mahindra Rajapaksa, the Committee to
Protect Journalists said today.

Eknelygoda, a political reporter and cartoonist for Lanka eNews, disappeared on the night of January 24, two days before the presidential elections that gave the incumbent president a sweeping victory that will keep him power for six more years.

“The media under Rajapaksa have been under tremendous
pressure,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program
coordinator. “The government’s silence over Prageeth Eknelygoda’s disappearance
represents the continuation of policies that have allowed journalists killers’
to go unprosecuted, and driven scores of others into exile. The government must
offer Sandhya Eknelygoda all its support in finding her husband.”

Sandhya Eknelygoda told CPJ she last saw her husband when he
left for work around 7:30 a.m. on the morning of January 24. Since then,
repeated visits to police stations, appeals to members of parliament, and personal
requests to Rajapaksa and other members of his government have been met with
silence. (Sandhya Eknelygoda’s wife wrote
an entry for the CPJ Blog about her husband’s case. A slide show of his
cartoons can be
seen here.)

With no answers forthcoming from the government, Sandhya Eknelygoda
says she will start organizing prayer vigils at temples across the country. The
first will be at the Kaali Amma Kovil Hindu temple in Colombo at 5 p.m.
Saturday.

In a report released in May, In
Sri Lanka, no peace dividend for press, CPJ highlighted Eknelygoda’s case,
noting that even with the end of Sri Lanka’s war with Tamil rebels, repression
of independent media has not eased, and journalists still face violence,
harassment, and detention.

CPJ reported extensively on attacks on journalists in its
special report Sri
Lanka: Failure to Investigate and recently ranked Sri Lanka as
the fourth-worst
country in the world for impunity in attacks on journalists. Twelve journalists
have been killed and scores of others attacked since the Rajapaksa government
came to power in 2004, with no convictions in any of the cases.

CPJ’s Journalists Assistance program counts more than 40 Sri
Lankan journalists living outside of the country who left out of fear for their
safety.

New York, February 23, 2017--Sri Lankan authorities should fully investigate the 2009 murder of an editor and bring his killers to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Five military intelligence officers were arrested this week in connection with the murder of Lasantha Wickramatunga, the editor-in-chief of the...

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